


Say Nothing

by erin_emily_writes



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: M/M, Protective Carlos, and some bruising, but Cecil is not a damsel in distress, but everyone's okay so it's fine, he lets Carlos be protective, honestly this was just an excuse to write some protective!Carlos, it's a beautiful thing really, mostly it's just evidence of violence, no more than usual in Night Vale, some violence, there is some blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:10:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1122799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erin_emily_writes/pseuds/erin_emily_writes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's a dangerous side to all of this knowledge-seeking... even our intrepid reporter and brilliant scientist aren't above the laws of the Sheriff's Secret Police.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Say Nothing

Sunlight streamed through the window and lit up Carlos’s eyelids. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, then realized he was a little bit colder than usual. He opened his eyes and rolled over, stretching one arm out to pull Cecil closer, but his arm fell onto an empty bed. He groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Dressed only in his blue plaid pajama pants, he trudged out to the kitchen.

He found Cecil in front of the stove, flipping chocolate chip pancakes in a similar getup, the tattoos swirling across his arms and torso visible and glowing a light blue. Carlos snuck up behind him, wrapped his arms around his waist, and rested his chin on Cecil’s shoulder.

“Morning,” he said.

“Hey,” Cecil said. His voice was warm but his tattoos stayed blue, and Carlos had recorded enough observations to know that blue tattoos meant a sad Cecil.

“Alright, spill it,” he said. “What’s the matter?”  

Cecil sighed. He scooped the last pancake out of the skillet and turned the stove off. Carlos let go and Cecil handed him a plate, avoiding eye contact. They sat down at the island and Cecil began to eat, but Carlos didn’t touch his.

“Cecil,” he said, stern. “Really.”

“Couldn’t sleep,” Cecil muttered.

“Why not?”

Cecil put down his fork. He took his glasses off, carefully placing them on the counter, and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I, uh… I… I stumbled upon something… interesting yesterday. About myself.”

Carlos was quiet. He waited, rather impatiently and with increasing worry, for whatever was going to come out of Cecil’s mouth next.

“I heard from one of the Erikas…”

Suddenly, the front door flew open and slammed against the wall as black-clad members of the sheriff’s secret police pushed their way inside and headed straight for Cecil. Carlos reached out to grab Cecil’s arm, but the police were too fast — they pulled Cecil away toward the door and knocked Carlos out of his chair.

“CECIL!” Carlos yelled as he wrestled one of the officers. “LET HIM GO!” He felt a sharp pain in his right arm. “Cecil…” he said again, but his senses were dulling rapidly.

“I’ll be fine, Carlos,” Cecil called back, using his radio voice to mask his own fear. “I’ll be okay…”

 

\---------------------

 

Sunlight streamed through the window and lit up Carlos’s eyelids. He stretched and rubbed his eyes, then realized he was a little bit colder than usual. He opened his eyes and rolled over, stretching one arm out to pull Cecil closer, but his arm fell onto an empty bed. He groaned and pushed himself into a sitting position, then swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up. Dressed only in his blue plaid pajama pants, he trudged out to the kitchen.

One glance around the room, and he remembered.

There were broken dishes and pancake chunks strewn across the floor among the overturned stools and tracked-in sand. The door had left a quarter-sized dent where the handle hit the wall as it slammed open.

Cecil’s purple glasses lay in the middle of the floor, frame mangled and lenses shattered. Carlos bent down and scooped them up. As he looked at them, he felt anger swell in his chest — burning, seething anger. But it wasn’t long before that anger was overpowered by a sudden and terrible fear. Fear for what Cecil was enduring at that very moment, of what Cecil would be like when he returned, that Cecil wouldn’t return… and fear of this town, these people, who would do this to their own neighbors.

Carlos could hear his heart beating in his ears. His chest felt tight and it seemed like he couldn’t get enough air no matter how much he gasped. He’d read about panic attacks before, and he thought if this wasn’t one, it must be close.

His feelings of anxiety and dread were similar to reactions he’d had before in Night Vale, like when he cracked open his first clock and saw what was inside, or when he’d stared into the void for too long, or when he heard that Cecil had gone into the subway alone. It felt like ages, but just as it had before, the scientist in him took over.

Carlos felt his panic transform into determination, and he sprang into action. He organized his frantic thoughts into a list, and the first thing on it was to take a sample of his own blood to try and determine what he had been drugged with.

He went to his desk and pulled out a syringe and a strip of rubber. He took them to the bathroom and sat them on the counter. He opened the medicine cabinet and found alcohol and a cotton ball. He tied the rubber just above his elbow, and cleaned the area just below it. Before he lost his nerve, he grabbed the syringe, connected it to the vial, and stuck it into his vein. When the syringe was full, he pulled it out, cleaned up his arm, and took the sample to the refrigerator to store it until he could get it to the lab.

Next, he turned to the mess. He righted the barstools, threw out the broken plates and bits of breakfast, and swept the sand out the front door. He traded the broom for the mop and ran it over the floors for good measure. He was stumped by the hole in the wall, and even though he knew it would do exactly nothing beneficial, he patched it with duct tape and made a mental note to come back to it later.

When the house was finally clean again, Carlos felt like he desperately needed a shower. He made sure the water was sufficiently hot — hotter than usual — and wished he could scrub away the day’s events along with the dirt and sweat. He didn’t spend more than ten minutes in the shower before getting out, drying off, pulling on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and running his hands haphazardly through his hair to rid it of tangles.

He walked back toward the living room and paused in the bedroom doorway, leaning against the frame. He wasn’t hungry. He didn’t want to sleep. Cecil still wasn’t back, and Carlos didn’t have a clue where to look for him. With nothing else to do, he turned to the elephant in the room. He wanted nothing more than to find out what Cecil knew, but he wasn’t sure where to start. He hadn’t heard anything on the radio, and he assumed Cecil hadn’t told anyone whatever it was he learned, so Carlos ruled out calling any interns or old woman Josie. He settled for rustling through whatever papers were on Cecil’s desk, hoping he’d written down whatever he’d ‘heard from one of the Erikas.’

Just minutes later — after pulling every file and folder and skimming through each paper, note, and even a few folded pieces of parchment with glyphs written in what was probably blood — Carlos threw the last of the papers back onto Cecil’s desk in frustration. He’d found nothing, nothing, related to whatever Cecil had learned the previous day.

Just then, he heard a loud ‘thump’ on the porch, followed by squealing tires and loud engines fading into the distance. He turned and ran to the door, yanking it open to reveal Cecil lying in a heap.

Carlos’s breath caught in his chest and the lump returned to his throat. He knelt down and scooped Cecil up. Cecil put his arms around Carlos’s neck.

“Perfect Carlos,” Cecil whispered, his voice hoarse, like he’d been shouting… or screaming. He was dirty, blood ran from a cut on his forehead and stained his skin and hair, and there were ugly bruises around each of his wrists and on the left side of his ribs. His tattoos were barely visible.

Carlos shushed him. He placed Cecil gently on the couch with a pillow under his head. He ran to the bathroom for a washcloth, then the kitchen for a glass of water, before returning to Cecil’s side.

“Here,” Carlos said, bringing the glass to Cecil’s mouth. He drank a little, and Carlos put the glass down and started wiping the blood and dirt from Cecil’s face. “Are you alright?”

“I’m… I’m okay, Carlos,” he sighed.

“Anything broken?”

“No.”

“Are you dizzy?”

“No.”

“Hot?”

“Not as hot as you.” A smile played on Cecil’s lips.

“Cut it out,” Carlos said, and though the sight of Cecil’s injuries was truly the most frightening thing he’d seen so far in all of Night Vale, he couldn’t help but smile a little.

Carlos dabbed around Cecil’s cut, but stopped when he flinched. He tried to wipe the blood out of Cecil’s hair and hoped it wouldn’t stain the silver strands.

“Carlos?” Cecil said, eyes closed.

“Hmm?”

“I’m going to get up and make some toast.”

“I don’t think so,” Carlos replied. “You can stay right here and I’ll get it.”

“If you insist,” Cecil said.

Carlos left the cloth with Cecil and went to the kitchen, where he proceeded to make toast faster than he thought any human had probably ever made toast before. He buttered each piece and put them on a plate, then brought it back to the living room. He was greeted with a weak smile and a “thanks,” but something wasn’t quite right — Cecil’s face was wet.

“Hey, hey, what is it?” Carlos asked, putting the plate on the table and sitting beside Cecil.

Cecil shook his head.

“I don’t know,” he said, shoulders shaking. He paused. “I can’t remember.”

Carlos pulled Cecil into his arms and let him cry.

 

\---------------------

 

The evening passed slowly. Carlos held Cecil there on the sofa for quite some time, muttering reassurances every once in a while. Eventually, Cecil decided he was done sitting around and took a long shower while Carlos ordered from Big Rico’s. The pizza arrived just as Cecil got out of the shower and Carlos put a couple of slices on a paper plate for each of them.

Cecil entered the kitchen wearing one of Carlos’s flannel shirts with the sleeves rolled up, black sweatpants, and a spare pair of glasses. The blood and dirt was gone from his hair and face, and his tattoos were visible again, flickering between light blue and violet. He smiled warmly as Carlos handed him a plate. If it weren’t for the bruises around Cecil’s wrists, Carlos thought, this scene could have passed as one from a normal night.

They ate together and Carlos put the leftover slices in the refrigerator. Before he could suggest they go to bed early, though, he saw Cecil grab an armful of things from the cabinet under the sink and take them around the corner.

Curious, Carlos followed. He found Cecil patching the hole in the wall by the front door, the duct tape temporary patch on the floor. Carlos never would have pegged Cecil for the fix-it type, but then again, it wasn’t so far-fetched to think that with all of Night Vale’s dangers, Cecil had probably patched a hole in the wall before. Carlos watched Cecil work, and he was finished in minutes.

“There,” Cecil said, admiring his work.

“Looks great,” Carlos said. He paused. “It’s getting kind of late, think maybe we should call it a night?”

“I suppose,” Cecil said.

Cecil carried his supplies back to the kitchen and put them away while Carlos changed and brushed his teeth. Cecil did the same, and they got into bed. Carlos couldn’t help but wrap his arms protectively around Cecil. They lay quietly together for a few moments until Carlos broke the silence.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” Carlos asked.

“Oh, Carlos,” Cecil replied. “I’m fine. This is hardly my first time at the rodeo, you know.”

Carlos’s heart sank. He had wondered, but had hoped it wasn’t true. “How many times?” he asked.

“I believe this was number five.”

Five. Five times Cecil had been through this, and Carlos had only been present for one. He pulled Cecil as close as he could, so close that their foreheads were touching, and wished he could have been there for all the previous occasions.

Cecil sighed. “You couldn’t have stopped them,” he said.

Carlos made an angry sound that came out very much like a growl.

“No. Not then, not today, and not even next time.”

“That’s not gonna stop me from trying my damnedest if there is a next time!”

“I know, my brave scientist,” Cecil said. He tipped his face up to kiss Carlos gently, then buried it in the crook of Carlos’s neck. “I’m glad you’re here,” he added, his breath hot against Carlos’s skin.

Carlos sighed and held Cecil tight. It was during times like these when Carlos realized how strong Cecil was. He’d just spent hours basically being tortured, and here he was telling Carlos it wasn’t his fault. Throughout the whole ordeal, Cecil had barely shown his fear — he covered it when the secret police dragged him away, he masked it when he returned, and he only let some of the sadness through when it was too great to bear. Even more, he’d endured the previous four incidents completely alone.

Carlos listened to Cecil’s breathing as it evened out and signaled that Cecil was finally asleep.  He tried to force himself to fall asleep, but his mind wasn’t having any of that. He turned back to the mystery of what Cecil had discovered, and plans for how to evade the secret police next time they thought Cecil knew too much.

Carlos didn’t sleep a wink that night.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it all the way here, I guess maybe that means you like what you're reading (and for that I thank you). If that's the case, you might like my other works The Way Home and Not All Holidays Are Dangerous, which are both kind of in a collection with this one. They all can stand alone or go together like chapters out of a larger story. It's, like, you know, whatever.
> 
> Anyway, thank you for reading!


End file.
